Napoleon, the Last Phase

"NOTHING," wrote the Russian Commissioner to his
Government after near three years' experience at St
Helena, "can be more absurd, more impolitic, less
generous and less delicate than the conduct of the
English to Napoleon." It would not be fair or just,
however, to debit Lowe or Cockburn with the responsibility for these ignominies, or for the general principle
of the Emperor's treatment. They were only the somewhat narrow and coarse agents of a sordid and brutal
policy. It was the British Ministry which was answerable jointly and severally for the treatment of Napoleon;
and which, strangely enough, was equally condemned
by the partisans of Lowe. "Worst of all," says the
Governor's most efficient advocate, ". . . was the conduct of the British Government, which, viewed in itself,
was utterly undignified: viewed from Sir Hudson Lowe's
standpoint was unfair and treacherous." When, however, we remember who and what these ministers
were we cease to marvel. Vandal, in one of the most
eloquent passages of his noble history, points out that
the eventual victory of Great Britain over Napoleon
was the victory of persistency over genius. "The men
who governed in London, flung by the illness of George
III. into a chaos of difficulties, placed between a mad
King and a discredited Regent, exposed to the virulent
attacks of the Opposition, to the revolt of injured interests, to the complaints of the City, face to face with

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